President Joe Biden says he “should” visit the U.S.-Mexico border, but has not had a lot of time to do so since taking office in January.
During a CNN town hall event on Thursday night, Biden said, “I guess I should go down, but the whole point of it is I haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down. I’ve been spending time going around looking at the $900 billion damage done by hurricanes and floods and weather and traveling around the world.”
“My wife Jill has been down. She’s been on both sides of the river. She’s seen the circumstances there. She’s looked into those places,” he added.
However, some social media users were quick to point out that the president has frequently made trips to his home state of Delaware:
Joe Biden said he's too busy to visit the border.
— Tom Cotton (@TomCottonAR) October 22, 2021
But he wasn't too busy to take a beach vacation in the middle of his chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal.
https://twitter.com/NathanBrandWA/status/1451362242734211079
Joe Biden says he hasn't had time to visit the border, but he has found time to visit Delaware 20+ times since taking office.
— Lance Gooden (@Lancegooden) October 22, 2021
Biden says he hasn’t had time to go to the border.
— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) October 22, 2021
He’s had time to go to Delaware almost every weekend.
He had time to go for a maskless dinner last week.
Can someone tell him there are kids at the border so he will go?
Biden on the border: “I’ve been there before and I haven’t — I mean, I know it well. I guess I should go down. But the whole point of it is I haven’t had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down.”On top of an incredibly light schedule, Biden has gone to Delaware 25X as POTUS. https://t.co/PKfkIxClry
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) October 22, 2021
The President claims he hasn’t had time to go to the border, but he certainly finds time to go home to Delaware.
— Congressman Dan Meuser (@RepMeuser) October 22, 2021
Why is the humanitarian crisis at our border not important to President Biden? https://t.co/MQi75ozM8W
Biden’s comments come amid an ongoing surge of migration at the southern border. The Washington Post reports that in the 2021 fiscal year, which ended in September, the number of migrants arrested while trying to cross the border hit the highest level ever recorded.
In September, Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, “Has President Biden ever been to the southern border?”
“In his life? I will have to look back in my history books and check the times he’s been to the southern border,” Psaki responded.
Doocy noted, “We have been looking all morning, and we cannot find any record of him visiting the border as president, vice president, senator, or even as a concerned citizen.”
He asked, “Why would that be?”
Psaki said she will check “when he may have been” to the border and asked why Doocy wanted to know.
He explained that Biden regularly “makes a point” after a natural disaster to visit the communities impacted to learn what the needs are so he can make informed decisions. He asked, “Why doesn’t he go down to Del Rio, Texas, and see what’s going on?”
Psaki said the situation at the border is the result of a “broken system” and that Biden “relies on his experience” in trying to address the root causes of immigration and support immigration reform.
“So all of his experiences and his time in office, whether vice president or Senate, inform his approach to issues,” she added.